Architecture Update: Lucky eights

THE Chinese plan to build the world's tallest building: a 1,500ft hotel and office tower in downtown Chongqing, the capital of Sichuan province. It will exceed the height of the Sears Tower, Chicago, currently the world's tallest building, by 46ft. According to the US magazine Architectural Record, the American architects have been asked to express the building's design in elements composed of eights, as Chinese believe this number brings prosperity. So the tower is likely to feature an eight-storey public lobby, and a vertical series of office floors grouped into eights and punctuated by eight-storey atria-in-the-air. It will be capped by 24 floors (three times eight) of single-storey and duplex apartment blocks.